War-weary Iraqis desperate for water
Baghdad, August 24
At a communal water station in a Baghdad slum, a young boy's skinny arms fly up and down as he uses a bicycle pump to coax water from the dry ground. His efforts produce a languid stream that will tide over his family -- and the families of the children waiting near him to fill their cooking pots -- until the next day.

Lawyers divided over restoration of judges
The legal fraternity appeared divided over the issue of the restoration of deposed judges. The differences have surfaced between the two apex bodies of the lawyers community - the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

Nepal foreign minister to visit New Delhi
Federal democratic republic Nepal, which has already sent its newly elected prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to Beijing to visit China, has decided to send its foreign minister Upendra Yadav to New Delhi on August 28.

Biden launches campaign
Says Republicans can’t change America
Washington, August 24
Democratic vice-presidential nominee and running mate of Barack Obama, Senator Joseph
Biden, began his campaign by launching a verbal attack on Republicans
seeking four more years in the White House.

Madonna and Guy give their marriage ‘faith’ lift
London, August 24
In a last-ditch attempt to save their troubled relationship, pop queen Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie have given their marriage a 'faith' lift.
The celebrity couple have renewed their wedding vows at a private kaballah ceremony here and Madonna had flown her religious teacher over from Los Angeles to conduct the secret proceedings.

Domestic discord simmers in kitchen
London, August 24
If you go by the popular notion that bedroom is the ‘hot point’ for many a domestic disagreement, think again, for a new study has revealed that marital discord simmers in kitchen.

China accords red-carpet welcome to Prachanda
Beijing, August 24
China today offered to provide “every possible help” to Nepal for its stability and development as Beijing accorded a re-carpet welcome to Prime Minister
Prachanda, who described the Communist giant as a “reliable” friend on his maiden foreign visit.

Tibetans mark Olympics close with protest rally
Kathmandu, August 24
About 2,000 Tibetan exiles, including children, monks and nuns, participated in a protest rally in Kathmandu today, hours before the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing.

Ela Gandhi backs revival of NIC
Durban, August 24
Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter has backed the revival of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) or a similar organisation on the same lines to be the “voice” of people of Indian origin in South Africa.

Indian father-son duo win Malaysian poll
Kuala Lumpur, August 24
An Indian father-son duo have been elected to Malaysia’s opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP).
DAP chairman Karpal Singh came in ninth, polling 471 votes while his MP son Gobind Singh Deo obtained 305 votes to clinch the last spot in DAP’s central working committee, media reports said here.

Lankan ruling party wins provincial polls
Colombo, August 24
Sri Lanka's ruling party won weekend provincial polls and said the victory was an electoral endorsement of its eight-month campaign to militarily crush Tamil Tiger separatists.

87 die in Kyrgyzstan plane crashBishkek, August 24As many as 87 persons died in the crash of a passenger plane today in the Kyrgyzstan capital of
Bishkek, the health ministry said. The Boeing 737-200, chartered by an Iranian company and bound for Tehran, crashed soon after take-off, a spokeswoman for Manas airport, 30 km from
Bishkek, said.

Baghdad, August 24
At a communal water station in a Baghdad slum, a young boy's skinny arms fly up and down as he uses a bicycle pump to coax water from the dry ground. His efforts produce a languid stream that will tide over his family -- and the families of the children waiting near him to fill their cooking pots -- until the next day.

This is a daily ritual for millions of Iraqis who lack access to sufficient clean water and proper sewage five years after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Water and sewage are perennial challenges in this arid country, where the overhaul of decrepit public works has been hindered by years of war and
neglect.

Nearly a billion litres of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad waterways each day -- enough to fill 370 Olympic-sized pools.

The UN estimates that less than half of Iraqis get drinking water piped into their homes in rural areas. In the capital, people set their alarm clocks to wake them in the middle of the night so they can fill storage tanks when water pressure is under less strain. New investments in water and sanitation are only slowly bearing fruit, even as Iraq seeks to capitalise on a dramatic drop in violence over the past year.

Iraqi and US officials have been working to refurbish existing water plants, distribution lines and sewage works, but they say major infrastructure improvements will take years.

Since 2003, the US has spent about 2.4 billion dollars on Iraq's water and sanitation sector and the Iraqi government has now taken over funding major construction. But the World Bank estimates that at least 14 billion dollars is needed.

In the apartment bloc where Suhad Mohammed lives in eastern Baghdad, water pressure is so weak that water doesn't reach the top floors. Each morning, her husband and son help her fill plastic jugs from a communal tap
downstairs and lug them up several flights of stairs.

Cases of acute diarrhoea are three times more common in eastern Baghdad where water service is most problematic than in the rest of the city, the UN says.

Officials say the water system was neglected for decades under Saddam Hussein and was ill-equipped to keep pace with a rapidly growing population in the Iraqi capital.

Electricity, which flickers on in Baghdad for just a few hours a day, is another major problem. Back-up power systems at water plants are not designed to operate as often as they do.

The state of Baghdad's sewage system may be even more bleak.

The UN says that sewage seeping and being dumped into water supplies has ''grave implications'' for Iraqis' health and the environment.
— Reuters

The legal fraternity appeared divided over the issue of the restoration of deposed judges. The differences have surfaced between the two apex bodies of the lawyers community - the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

Addressing separate news conferences here, both bodies took a unilateral line of action for the restoration of judiciary to its November 2, 2007 position. SCBA president Aitzaz Ahsan regretted the PBC stance and criticised it for subverting the lawyers’ movement. He, however, said lawyers would not pay any heed to discordant voices from the PBA controlled now by the government, which has provided it huge funds.

PBC vice-chairman Syed Rehman told a press conference that the PBC would not allow anyone to hijack the lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of sacked judges and claimed that it was the prerogative of the PBC to lead the movement, being the parent body of the country’s legal fraternity. Rehman announced that the PBC would convene a meeting on September 12 to devise its future strategy. He vowed for the restoration of November 2 judiciary, while rejecting any minus-one formula that did not reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

PBC member Pervez Inayat Malik told reporters that the council had approved the decision to replace Rasheed A. Rizvi with Yaseen Azad as chairman of the PBC Executive Committee, also cancelling the membership of Hamid Khan as EC member.

Fourteen of the 17 members who attended the meeting agreed with the decisions, he added. Those who opposed the decisions included Ali Ahmed Kurd, Rasheed A Rizvi and Abdul Rehman Ansari. Meanwhile, federal law minister Farooq H. Naik handed over a cheque of Rs 50 million to the PBC. Naik reiterated that a resolution for the reinstatement of sacked judges would be tabled in Parliament on Monday.

“The decision adopted by Parliament would have to be accepted by all forces regarding the reinstatement of sacked judges, Naik added.

Sit-ins on August 28

Bar associations across the country will launch sit-ins on August 28 as mark of frustration over PPP-led government’s dithering on pledges to restore deposed judges, Aitzaz Ahsan, president Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association announced here on Saturday. “We are constrained to resume our movement for restoration of judges because we don’t see any immediate resolution of the issue, “ Aitrzaz said after presiding over a meeting of the Lawyers’ Movement Coordination Committee here. He said all traffic would be jammed for two hours on major roads and highway in the cities across the country.

Federal democratic republic Nepal, which has already sent its newly elected prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to Beijing to visit China, has decided to send its foreign minister Upendra Yadav to New Delhi on August 28.

According to newly appointed foreign minister and chairman of Madhesi People’s Rights Forum Yadav, he is going to New Delhi to attend the ministerial-level meeting of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) to be held on August 29.

Yadav informed that he would raise the issue about the devastating flood in Koshi river that rendered thousands of Nepalis in Sunsari and Indians in Bihar homeless after breaching the embankment in Sunsari district with the Indian officials and try to find permanent solution.

He also added that he would discuss with the Indian counterparts to find possible support for the flood victims in Sunsari.

Indian-origin Nepali national Yadav, who had constituted a Madhes-based party two years ago and established himself as fourth largest party in the Constituent Assembly, also claimed that both Nepal and India should study their past bilateral treaties and review them in accordance with the changed political context.

Yadav would be the first Nepal government’s representative to visit India on behalf of newly formed government led by former rebels Supremo Prachanda.

Washington, August 24
Democratic vice-presidential nominee and running mate of Barack Obama, Senator Joseph
Biden, began his campaign by launching a verbal attack on Republicans
seeking four more years in the White House.

He criticised President George W. Bush's policies and said: "...You can't change America and give our workers a fighting chance when after 3 million manufacturing jobs disappear, you continue to support tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas."

Quoting Republican nominee John McCain, he said: "You can't change America and end this war in Iraq when you declare that ‘no one has supported Bush in Iraq more than I have’, you can't change America when you know your first four years as President will look exactly like the last eight years of George Bush's presidency."

The 65-year-old Senator from Delaware, who was picked up as the running mate by Obama barely two days before the party starts its national convention in Denver, said: "We don't have to have four more years of George Bush and John McCain...The next US President is going to deliver the most significant moment in American history since Franklin Roosevelt.

“He will have such an incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America, but to change the direction of the world."

Kicking off his election campaign at Springfield, Illinois,
Biden, said: "This is no ordinary election and this may be our last chance to reclaim the America we love. It's the time for all of us, as Lincoln said, to put our feet in the right place and to stand firm."

Obama used the occasion to shower praise on his running mate.

"...Joe Biden is what so many others pretend to be - a statesman with sound judgment who doesn't have to hide behind bluster to keep America strong. Joe won't just make a good Vice-President, he will make a great one," Obama said.
— ANI

London, August 24
In a last-ditch attempt to save their troubled relationship, pop queen Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie have given their marriage a 'faith' lift.
The celebrity couple have renewed their wedding vows at a private kaballah ceremony here and Madonna had flown her religious teacher over from Los Angeles to conduct the secret proceedings.

"It was very intimate and both Guy and Madonna took vows to and pledged to try and make their marriage strong again. The ceremony lasted about an hour.

"They turned up at the kabbalah centre in their gym clothes and changed into white robes. Everyone at the centre hopes that they'll get through their recent rough patch," the 'Daily Mail' quoted a source close to the couple as saying.

The ceremony was organised after the 50-year-old pop singer had approached the head of her kaballah group to broker a patch-up with Ritchie.

In fact, the couple's relationship was reportedly on the rocks with rumours doing the rounds recently that both Madonna and Ritchie, 10 years her junior, were even ready for a separation after seven years of marriage.

"Things are in a bad shape. Rather than speaking to her directly, Guy will ask their son Rocco to ask Madge to pass the salt during dinner. There is a growing tension and the children are finding it enormously difficult to deal with. Of course, both parents want to protect the little ones.

"So Madge has asked Rav Berg to help guide her and Guy through the choppy waters. He's always been on hand to advise Madonna. She has deep respect for his opinion.

"He just hasn't taken as much interest as he once did in what she's doing. Right now they've fallen out of love. Rav Berg's job is to help them decide if it's worth making a go of things," a source close to Madonna had said
earlier. — PTI

London, August 24
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is suffering from dementia, a new book by her daughter has revealed.

In her book, Carol Thatcher has described in moving detail her mother’s gradual loss of memory which began in 2000 and the ‘Iron Lady’ of Britain’s struggle to remember even the simplest facts in her life. I had always thought of her as ageless, timeless and 100 per cent cast-iron damage-proof, Carol wrote in her memoir ‘a swim-on part in the golden bowl’, serialised by the Daily Mail.

She has recalled how she first noticed slips in her 82-year-old mother’s memory during a luncheon meeting in 2000 when Thatcher suddenly got confused between the Falklands and Bosnia while talking about the war in the former Yugoslavia.

It’s not always easy to make lunchtime conversation with a mother who for decades has had international leaders and statesmen to engage with in potentially world-changing discussions.

But she soon became confused, and a few sentences later discussion of Bosnia had moved to the Falklands as she muddled the Falklands conflict with the Yugoslav wars. I almost fell off my chair. Watching her struggle with her words and her memory, I couldn’t believe it, Carol wrote.

Carol, a journalist by profession, has also disclosed how she had to repeatedly break the truly awful news of the death her father Sir Denis in 2003 until the information sank in finally.

I had to keep giving her the bad news over and over again. Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she’d look at me sadly and say ‘oh’ as I struggled to compose myself. ‘Were we all there?’ she’d ask softly, carol wrote in her book.

She has also recalled how when a friend asked her mother about soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, she snapped back into iron lady mode and was utterly engaging .

Thatcher was Britain’s first and so far the only female premier who was in office between 1979 and 1990.

London, August 24
If you go by the popular notion that bedroom is the ‘hot point’ for many a domestic disagreement, think again, for a new study has revealed that marital discord simmers in kitchen.

Researchers in Britain have found that the kitchen is the source for all marital problems - in fact, not only it is the busiest room of the house, but also the most stressful.

“The kitchen is the heart of the home, where we bond, do our homework, entertain, feed ourselves and communicate so we’re not surprised that our research found that tensions are rising here,” the Daily Mail quoted Susannah Holloway, the director of Hotpoint which commissioned the study, as saying.

In fact, the study is based on a survey of around 1,500 mothers in Britain.

It has revealed that 85 per cent are very much angry at their husband’s bad kitchen habits, with 32 per cent saying that making a mess when cooking was actually their partner’s worst habit.

Leaving pots and pans in the sink also scored highly - 30 per cent said it was their man’s worst habit. Nineteen per cent said not taking the bin out caused arguments and 16 per cent said leaving food out of the fridge was a problem.

Eating the last “treat” from the fridge or cupboard, such as biscuits or pudding, was also a source of
friction. And once the children had been put to bed, there was, perhaps, a predictably huge disparity in what men and women did.

Seventy per cent of men settled down in front of the TV to watch a DVD or television programme, often with a glass of wine or beer in hand.

In contrast, their wives immediately got on with tidying up the house (77 per cent), putting some washing on or hanging it up (51 per cent) or preparing a meal (40 per cent), the survey found.
— PTI

Beijing, August 24
China today offered to provide “every possible help” to Nepal for its stability and development as Beijing accorded a re-carpet welcome to Prime Minister
Prachanda, who described the Communist giant as a “reliable” friend on his maiden foreign visit.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao met separately with Pushpa Kamal Dahal or “Prachanda” and promised reciprocal cooperation in various fields between the two neighbouring nations.

China and Nepal are “good neighbours, good friends and good partners” Hu said, noting that “the two countries have established a good neighbourly partnership and enjoyed friendship generation upon generation”.

“Mr Prime Minister has come to the Beijing Olympics’ closing ceremony within a week after being sworn in,” Hu said,
referring to Prachanda’s election as Prime Minister on August 18.

“This fully demonstrates the great attention Nepal attaches to relations with China and its profound friendship with the Chinese people. We highly appreciate that,” Hu told
Prachanda, the head of the Maoists, who has departed from tradition where India has been the first port of call for most previous top Nepalese leaders.

The Chinese government respects the social system and path of development chosen independently by the Nepalese and supports their efforts in safeguarding sovereignty and territorial
intergrity, Hu said. — PTI

Kathmandu, August 24
About 2,000 Tibetan exiles, including children, monks and nuns, participated in a protest rally in Kathmandu today, hours before the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing.

Monks on maroon robes and nuns with shaven heads, some with Tibetan flags and placards calling for independence of their homeland, were among the participants who walked silently for 8 km on the outskirts of Nepal’s capital.

The police kept a strict vigil, snatched some flags but let the march continue from the Boudha suburb to the ancient monastery of Swyambhu outside the main city.

Exiles called for United Nations and other fact-finding missions to ''assess the actual situation in Tibet and let the world know the truth''.

Over 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal, the second biggest home for them outside Tibet after India, since fleeing their homeland after a failed uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said last month the Nepali authorities were under pressure from Beijing to stop Tibetan protests, a charge China has denied.
— Reuteres

Durban, August 24
Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter has backed the revival of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) or a similar organisation on the same lines to be the “voice” of people of Indian origin in South Africa.

Ela Gandhi, a former MP of the ruling ANC, said she fully supported veteran activist Fatima Meer’s call for reviving the NIC and the South African Indian Congress because people of Indian origin had no authentic organisation to represent them.

“When the NIC was disbanded in 1993, its leaders had been given a clear mandate to convert the organisation into a cultural body to represent the Indian people,” Ela, who is currently the chairman of the Gandhi Development Trust and the Satyagraha Movement, said. “Unfortunately no one took up the resolution of the people and that is why today we don’t have an authentic organisation representing the people,” she added.

Ela also said she totally agreed that the community needed a voice because whether people liked it or not, South Africans still identified people on racial basis as Indians, coloured, whites and Africans. She added that some people might have a problem with the name Indian Natal Congress because of the ‘Indian’ title. If this was the case, a new progressive organisation must be established as soon as possible, so that it could become the voice of the
people. — PTI

Kuala Lumpur, August 24
An Indian father-son duo have been elected to Malaysia’s opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP).
DAP chairman Karpal Singh came in ninth, polling 471 votes while his MP son Gobind Singh Deo obtained 305 votes to clinch the last spot in DAP’s central working committee, media reports said here. Urging party members at the 15th DAP National Congress here yesterday Karpal said, “Every political party has its own differences but we must ride above them and rise to the occasion.”

“Only one man can bring these two parties together and he is Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He can be the middleman,” the Star Malaysia quoted Karpal as saying.

DAP’s old gun Lim Kit Siang garnered the most votes with a whopping 624-vote mandate out of the 739 delegates. His son, and party secretary-general, Lim Guan Eng came in close with 620 votes, cementing the father and son tag team, reports said.

Lim Guan said the party was backing Anwar as the alternative prime minister. “We endorse Anwar and are committed to cooperation among the Pakatan Rakyat parties,” he added.
— PTI

Colombo, August 24
Sri Lanka's ruling party won weekend provincial polls and said the victory was an electoral endorsement of its eight-month campaign to militarily crush Tamil Tiger separatists.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won 56.3 per cent of council seats in North Central province and 55.3 per cent in Sabaragamuwa province, two of nine on the Indian Ocean island that has been fighting a civil war since 1983.

More than 68 per cent of the 2.1 million registered voters cast their ballot on what observers said was a peaceful day in spite of pre-poll violence and intimidation.

Imran lambasts PPPLONDON: Terming the PPP-led coalition government as ‘most incompetent’ in Pakistan’s history, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said the country’s situation will deteriorate further if Asif Ali Zardari becomes its president. “The economy is heading towards a meltdown. There is no way Pakistan can win this prolonged war against militants,” Khan, chief of Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said. “In these circumstances, this government is not going to last long. There is going to be a lot of turbulence ahead,” he added.
— PTI

Ghost nuptialsKUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian infant died 50 years ago and a teenager who died of kidney failure three decades ago were married at the weekend by a temple medium in a ceremony on the resort island of Penang. The ghost nuptials come during the month long Chinese Hungry Ghost festival, where local Chinese believe spirits of the deceased are released from hell to roam the earth and when relatives offer them food and take care of their needs to appease the spirits.
— AFP

Carla Bruni pregnant?
LONDON: Barely a month after Carla Bruni expressed her desire to have a child with her husband French president Nicolas Sarkozy, speculation is rife that the former Italian supermodel-turned-singer is pregnant. According to a report in British newspaper the ‘Daily Mail’, president Sarkozy’s tender pat on Bruni’s belly, while the couple was on a holiday at the family villa in Cap Negre, has fuelled the speculation. “I’m not pregnant and I regret it because I love it when I am. Will it happen? It is very difficult for me to say,” she said.
— PTI